Professor Janet Hunter

Saji Professor of Economic History

My research interests focus on the economic history of modern Japan in comparative context, and I have focussed in particular on gender and labour issues, the history of economic relations between Britain and Japan, and the development of communications. I am currently working on the economic history of natural disasters, and have a major project analysing the economic impact of the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923. I am also been engaged in collaborative work with scholars in Japan and the US looking at the historical evolution of ideas relating to business ethics in Japan, and in particular the international criticism of Japanese business ethics in the late 19th – early 20th centuries.

Women and the Labour Market in Japan's Industrialising Economy: The Textile Industry before the Pacific War (Routledge Curzon, 2003; Japanese edition, Yuhikaku, 2008)

Editor and introduction (with S.Sugiyama), History of Anglo-Japanese Economic and Business Relations (Palgrave, 2002, Japanese edition Tokyo University Press, 2001)

• The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development, joint ed. [Routledge 1995

Conference and Seminar Papers (since 2009)

2012

‘Japan’s Consumption History in Comparative Perspective’, Association for Asian Studies, Toronto, March 2012

‘Historical Relations and the Study of Relations between the UK and Japan’, EUSI International Workshop, Tokyo, September 2012

‘Comparative Gender Studies: Britain in the Japanese Mirror’, Tsuda College, Tokyo, September 2012

‘The Economic Impact of Earthquakes in Modern Japan: Tokyo, Kobe and Tōhoku’, Public Lecture, University of Tasmania, December 2012

‘Gendering Textile Production in Modern Japan: the Doubtful Advantages of Cheap Female Labour’, Keynote Address, Conference on Textile, Dress and Decoration in Asia: Gender, Culture and Economic History, University of Tasmania, December 2012

‘Producing and Consuming: Analysing the Factors behind Japan’s Modern Economic Growth’, Faculty of Business, University of Tasmania, December 2012

'Deficient in Commercial Morality'? Japanese Business Ethics in Comparative Perspective, 1870s-1930s', Department of East Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin, March 2013

2011

‘”The Markets have Collapsed into Complete Confusion”: Market Operation after the Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1923’, Asia and Europe in Global Context Conference, University of Heidelberg, October 2011 (also World Economic History Congress, Stellenbosch, July 2012)

2010

‘Entrepreneurs and States in Context’, Wuhan Normal University, Wuhan, China, December 2010

2009

'Technology Transfer and the Gendering of Work: Meiji Japan in Comparative Historical Perspective', Economics Department, Kōbe University, December 2008; World Economic History Congress, Utrecht, August 2009

'Nature, Markets and State Response: the Drought of 1939 in Japan and Korea', Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, December 2008; University of Cardiff, February 2009; World Economic History Congress, Utrecht, August 2009

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